In observance of the 41st anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the local Southern Christian Leadership Conference joined community organizations and unions at the "Remembering King, Realizing the Dream" march and rally April 4.
The 3-mile march, which hundreds participated in, started along Exposition Boulevard at Foshay Learning Center and concluded at Dorsey High School in South Los Angeles. The schools' proximity to an 8.6-mile transportation project that will run from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City along Exposition Boulevard — known as the Expo Rail line — has been criticized by local residents.
The march also partly focused on what some see as the lack of African American construction workers in Los Angeles.
Eric Lee, executive director of SCLC of Greater Los Angeles, said that organizers chose to target the Expo Rail Line route because it is a "shovel-ready" project and qualifies for funds from the recently passed federal stimulus bill that should bring good, quality jobs to the community.
"They are working on that line now, but you don't see many black brothers working on that line, so we need to bring attention to that," Lee said.
Samantha Bricker, chief operating officer of the Exposition Construction Authority, said the authority is doing everything to ensure that jobs are available in the community, and based on the numbers as of March 27, the contractor has met the 30 percent local hiring goal set by the authority.
Bricker said the authority has had several meetings with joint-venture partners to ensure that it aggressively adheres to the requirement that 30 percent of jobs go to people in the community. She added that the authority instituted an oversight committee to deal with jobs, streamlined procedures requesting local hires from unions, and met with subcontractors to ensure they follow the local jobs programs.
As a result, 21 people have been hired from the community in the last 30 days, she said on March 27. Bricker added that out of the 45 people who have been hired through the authority's local jobs program, 45 percent have been African American.
The line will run underground from downtown to the University of Southern California and overhead through portions of the West Los Angeles area. It is designed to run at street-level through South Los Angeles.
The train line will travel about 10 feet from Dorsey High School and within 50 feet of Foshay, a collector site for school buses and where roughly 3,400 students congregate daily.
Lee said the line, as designed, raises concerns about safety.
"It drives through our neighborhood at street-level, putting our children in danger. So, I'm talking about safe neighborhoods. I want the same quality of service that USC and Culver City get," he said.
In addressing safety, Bricker said the Expo Line is utilizing many of the Pasadena Gold Line's features, which includes the installation of gates that will preclude cars from driving around them, pedestrian gates, and the installation of fencing in front of Foshay so children won't cross into the right of way.
"The PUC (Public Utilities Commission) has given us approval for all of the crossings except Dorsey, and we are going back to the drawing board on that," she said. "We believe this will be a safe line and we have taken many steps to ensure the safety of this line."
One of the organizations participating in the march was the roughly 5,000-member security officers' union SEIU-SOULA (Security Officers United In Los Angeles) Local 2006. Faith Culbreath, president of SEIU-SOULA, said it was important that the unions participate in the march and contributed to what that day means.
"Our belief system is that quality jobs are a way to enrich the community," said Culbreath. "We can't make that argument and not participate in something as important as all of the issues that we want to deal with that day. We want to make sure that those jobs (for the Expo Rail) become good jobs that the community can benefit from, as well as making sure that the necessary safety precautions are in place. We also want to make sure that education is a key point and key issue with the union."
Chico C. Norwood is a writer for the L.A. Watts Times.
Photo by Marty Cotwright
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